The laminating machines of the type as referred to above are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Nos. 4-82953 and 4-267149. The attached FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing a conventional laminating machine of this kind. In FIG. 7, a longitudinal web 1 is composed of longitudinal fibrous elements 10 and a transverse web 2 is composed of transverse fibrous elements 9. Furthermore, the transverse web 2 is provided with selvage portions 3. The longitudinal web 1 and the transverse web 2 are fed to a laminating roll 5, on which roll the webs are laminated.
FIG. 8 is a side elevation of the laminating machine as shown in FIG. 7. FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 are partial plan views of the above machine. Before the transverse web 2 reach the laminating roll 5, the transverse fibrous elements 9 are liable to slacken down as shown in FIG. 8, so that the width of the transverse web 2 gets narrow with its slackening as shown in FIG. 9. Therefore, the transverse web 2 must be pulled transversely with a pair of cloth guiders 8 that are disposed at the positions just before the feeding points and the transverse web 2 is then introduced onto the laminating roll 5.
Meanwhile, as shown in FIG. 7, the longitudinal web 1 having a predetermined width is led onto a guide roll 4 in the first place and it is turned back on the guide roll 4 and it is then put in layers with the transverse web 2 that is already fed onto the laminating roll 5. By this arrangement, the transverse web 2 is pressed against the laminating roll 5 by the longitudinal tension in the longitudinal web 1. There is formed an adhesive layer on at least one of the contact surfaces of the longitudinal web 1 and the transverse web 2. These webs are heated during the shifting on the peripheral surface of the laminating roll 5 and the longitudinal web 1 and the transverse web 2 are bonded together on the outlet roll (nip roll) 6 to provide a product (laminate) 7.
Just before the transverse web 2 being laminated with the longitudinal web 1, the transverse fibrous elements 9 of the web 2 must be disposed in the direction perpendicular to the longitudinal travelling direction as shown in FIG. 9. However, the transverse fibrous elements 9 sometimes become oblique (skew condition) as shown in FIG. 10. This is caused to occur due to the unevenness in the properties of both the selvage portions. In other words, because it is not possible to pull forth the transverse fibrous elements 9, both the selvage portions 3 must be pulled forth in order to feed the web onto the laminating roll 5, so that the selvage portions 3 are subjected to considerably large tension.
In this step, when the cross-sectional area or tensile property of one selvage portion 3 differs from those of the other selvage portion 3, the difference in the degrees of elongation of those selvage portions occurs. Even when such a difference is slight, it will be accumulated with the passage of time. Accordingly, the moving of one side edge which is easily elongated is delayed and the arrangement of transverse fibrous elements 9 becomes oblique. When the degree of the skew state of the transverse fibrous elements 9 increases to some extent, the transverse fibrous elements 9 themselves pull the delayed selvage portion, so that the tensile load to the delayed selvage portion is reduced and the selvage portion is elongated no more and it reaches an equilibrium state. Accordingly, the transverse fibrous elements 9 are transferred as they stands in the inclined state.
If the skew state of transverse fibrous elements 9 is caused, it is not possible to produce a desirable product because the fibrous elements 10 of longitudinal web 1 and the transverse fibrous elements 9 cannot be laid perpendicularly. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid strictly the occurrence of skew state of the transverse fibrous elements 9 and, when it is caused to occur, it must be set right. There is a limit to equalize both the selvage portions 3, so that it is not possible to avoid the occurrence of the skew state by means of the equalization of selvage portions. Therefore, in the conventional art, when the skew state is caused, the production lines must be stopped and it must be then restarted. This operation causes a problem in that the productivity is seriously lowered.
It is, therefore, the object of the present invention to solve the above problem by providing an apparatus for laminating web with which the transverse fibrous elements of transverse web is maintained in the possibly correct transverse direction and a transverse web and a longitudinal web can be laminated in a correct relationship.